Innovation, the elixir (灵丹妙药) of progress, has always cost people their jobs

游客2023-08-05  19

问题     Innovation, the elixir (灵丹妙药) of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution hand weavers were【C1】________ aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has【C2】________ many of the mid-skill jobs that supported 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.
    For those who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place, such disruption is a natural part of rising【C3】________. Although innovation kills some jobs, it creates new and better ones, as a more【C4】________ society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demand more goods and services. A hundred years ago one in three American workers was【C5】________ on a farm. Today less than 2% of them produce far more food. The millions freed from the land were not rendered【C6】________ but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated. Today the pool of secretaries has【C7】________, but there are ever more computer programmers and web designers.
    Optimism remains the right starting-point, but for workers the dislocating effects of technology may make themselves evident faster than its【C8】________. Even if new jobs and wonderful products emerge, in the short term income gaps will widen, causing huge social dislocation and perhaps even changing politics. Technology’s【C9】________ will feel like a tornado (旋风), hitting the rich world first, but【C10】________ sweeping through poorer countries too. No government is prepared for it.
    A)  benefits     F) jobless          K) rhythm
    B)  displaced    G) primarily        L)  sentiments
    C)  employed     H) productive       M) shrunk
    D)  eventually   I)   prosperity     N) swept
    E)   impact      J)  responsive      O) withdrawn [br] 【C1】

选项

答案 N

解析 动词辨析题。空格位于系动词were之后,副词aside之前,据此推断应填入及物动词的过去分词构成被动语态,且该动词可与aside构成固定搭配。根据上文可知,改革创新导致很多人失业,故此处意为“机械织布机使手工纺织工人失业”,故答案为N)swept“清扫,清除”,sweep aside为固定搭配,含义为“把……扫地出门”。
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